White Bean Soup With Sausage And Kale

We've had our first snow this week. Granted it was very light, and it did not accumulate, but it did leave Ryan and me craving some winter comfort by way of hot soup. I was inspired to make this White Bean Soup from a picture I saw in a magazine. The magazine recipe looked sort of bland and boring so I made the necessary substitutions and additions and ended up with something incredibly flavorful, hearty, and satisfying. I spent 5 mins prepping and it took just under 20 mins to cook. Simple, right? Here is the recipe.

White Bean Soup With Sausage And Kale

2 cups raw Hot or Mild Italian sausage, chopped
1 cup chopped onion
4 cloves garlic
3 cups chicken broth
2 (15 oz) cans white beans
4 cups chopped kale
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

Heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat, and add sausage to pan. Sauté about 6-7 mins or until sausage is mostly browned and mostly cooked through. Add onion and garlic to pan and sauté until tender. Meanwhile, heat the chicken broth up in the microwave on High for 3 mins. Add beans to pan then add the hot broth and bring up to a boil. Stir in the kale, and add crushed red pepper flakes (optional) and black pepper. Lower heat to medium and let cook for 5 mins. Enjoy!

Notes:
1) Sausage - you can use ground sausage meat if you prefer but I happened to have a pkg of hot italian sausages in the freezer that I needed to use up!
2) White beans - I used 1 can great northern beans and 1 can baby butter beans.